Archive for March, 2010|Monthly archive page

In remarks reported by IRNA, an official Iranian news agency, and translated by Reuters, Mr. Ahmadinejad said, “The September 11 incident was a big fabrication as a pretext for the campaign against terrorism and a prelude for staging an invasion against Afghanistan.” Mr. Ahmadinejad also reportedly described the attacks in New York as a “complicated intelligence scenario and act.” Conspiracy theorists in the Middle East have suggested that the attacks were not the work of Al Qaeda, but carried out by Israeli or American intelligence operatives.

In a speech during Iran’s annual anti-Israel day in September, Mr. Ahmadinejad said of the Holocaust, “The pretext for the creation of the Zionist regime is false.” He added: “It is a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim.”

Mr. Ahamdinejad’s claims come at the end of a week in which Radovan Karadzic, the former leader of Bosnia’s Serbs, told a war crimes tribunal in the Hague that both the siege of Sarajevo and the massacre at Srebrenica were “myths,” and a mentally ill gunman from California, who had written that he was interested in “establishing the truth of events such as the September 11 demolitions,” opened fire at the Pentagon.

White House advisers are nearing a recommendation for President Barack Obama to choose a military trial for self-professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four of his alleged henchman, senior administration officials said Thursday. The review of where and how to hold a Sept. 11 trial is not over, so no recommendation is yet before the president and Obama has not made a determination of his own, officials said. The review is not likely to be finished this week. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss private deliberations.

The Washington Post first reported the near-recommendation of a military trial.

“If this stunning reversal comes to pass, President Obama will deal a death blow to his own Justice Department, not to mention American values,” said American Civil Liberties Union Anthony D. Romero. “Even with recent improvements, the military commissions system is incapable of handling complicated terrorism cases and achieving reliable results. President Obama must not cave in to political pressure and fear-mongering. He should hold firm and keep these prosecutions in federal court, where they belong.”

President Obama has signed a one-year extension of several provisions in the nation’s main counter-terrorism law, the Patriot Act. Provisions in the measure would have expired on Sunday without Obama’s signature. The act, which was adopted in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, expands the government’s ability to monitor Americans in the name of national security.

* Permit surveillance against a so-called lone wolf, a non-U.S. citizen engaged in terrorism who may not be part of a recognized terrorist group.

Obama’s signature comes after the House voted 315 to 97 Thursday to extend the measure. The Senate also approved the measure, with privacy protections cast aside when Senate Democrats lacked the necessary 60-vote supermajority to pass them. Thrown away were restrictions and greater scrutiny of the government’s authority to spy on Americans and seize their records.